Knit One, Murder Two
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "Come on, Castle. What won? Maybe I can help." He slid his head to the side and peeked up at her. "You'll help?" he asked with an eager grin. But his face fell a second later. "No. It's no use. It's impossible." Kate patted his cheek. "Offer is about to expire. Just tell me. What won?" "It's soooo dumb," he groaned.


Title: Knit One, Murder Two

WC: ~3700

Spoilers: Set in Season 5. Very small spoiler for Secret's Safe With Me

Rating: T

A/N: This is entirely the fault of 1822andallthat. Oh. And International08. So I suppose this is for them.

* * *

"She's punishing me." Castle staggered out of the office and flopped heavily on to the end of the couch opposite Beckett.

The cushions recoiled under his weight, jostling her elbow. Castle froze in horror as he watched coffee slosh to the very edge of the mug in her hand. He sighed with relief as the wave receded without topping the rim.

"She's going to have to get in line," Beckett said with a glare. She set the mug down on the end table forcefully enough to send hot liquid cascading over her fingers.

"Sorry," he replied with exaggerated puppy dog eyes as he stretched his body out lengthwise and inched closer to rest his head on her thigh. He reached for her hand and kissed the reddened skin.

"Who is 'she' and what did you do to deserve it?" Kate asked as she pulled her fingers free and palmed the crown of his head to shove him away. The move conveniently shielded her from said puppy dog eyes, which had more of an effect on her than she'd admit while there was still breath in her body.

Castle hauled himself on to his stomach and pulled the nearest throw pillow over his head. "Gina."

_Ah, writing crisis._ Kate smirked to herself and went back to her book.

It had surprised her at first how volatile his moods could be when it came to writing. Surprised her and left her at a loss. He'd be stalking around the apartment, working out dialogue, manic and wild-eyed one minute, and in the depths of depression the next. He was hard on the furniture and small electronics. She had no idea what girlfriend protocol might be under the circumstances.

But after the third time in two weeks that he'd sent away for information on a mail-order degree in gun repair, declaring that he'd never write another word, ever, in the history of this or any other EVER, she'd learned not to feed the drama llama.

Castle pulled the corner of the pillow back and peered up at her. "Nothing, by the way."

"Hmmm?" She didn't look up from her book.

"Nothing," he repeated testily. "I did _nothing_ and she's punishing me. "

Kate made a noncommittal noise and turned the page.

"It's because I broke up with her," he said after a minute. He risked uncovering a smidgen more of his face. "Twice. That's what this is about."

"You broke up with her. Two _years_ ago. And she's punishing you? Get over yourself, Castle." She slapped the book down in her lap.

He quickly hid his smile, but not quite quickly enough. Kate snatched the pillow from his face and tossed it aside.

"Go. Work." She flicked his ear. "Stop acting up to get attention."

"But it's working," he argued as he ran his index finger along the outside seam of her jeans.

"Not anymore." She picked up her book again and made a show of focusing on it.

But as long as she could see his rumpled hair (and it was _not_ adorably rumpled) and feel the warmth of his breath against her side, that's all it was: A show.

And he knew it. That _sucked._ He totally knew it, and against all odds, he was capable of waiting her out. What the hell was up with that?

Kate sighed and marked her place in the book. _Better get it over with._

"How is she punishing you?" She set the book aside and lifted her arm.

Castle grinned broadly and wriggled to settle his head in her lap. He pulled her arm over his side and twined his fingers through hers.

"She's stifling me. Forcing me to include this _stupid_ plot detail. And it's impossible."

"Why?"

"I told you, she's . . ."

"Reality-based answer, Castle," she said, warningly. "Why, all of a sudden, is your publisher dictating plot?"

"Stupid . . ." He turned his face away and the second word was lost in a wash of heat against denim.

"Stupid what?" She tugged at his hair.

"Contest." His chin jutted out at an injured angle.

"Contest?" Kate frowned. Then it dawned on her. "You mean the stupid fan contest that was _your_ idea in the first place?"

"Technically, it was your idea." He tipped his head up and wagged an accusing finger at her. He snatched it back again almost immediately when he realized that he stood a better than even chance of losing it.

But Kate was too busy laughing at him—mocking his pain—to notice.

"_My_ idea?" she crowed. "How the hell was it my idea to have a charity auction for fan features in the next book?"

"It was _your_ idea to sell my creativity to the highest bidder." He fiddled with the hem of her sweater to suppress the urge for further finger wagging.

"Oh . . _oh!_ Eunice!" Kate tried to tone down her smile. A little. He really did hate the name and things had gotten . . . awkward . . . when Percy brought his mother by the Black Pawn offices.

"Eunice." Castle scowled. "Eunice tested well."

"I know," she pointed out. "Gina told me that. At _great_ length when you were too big a baby to pick up the damned phone."

"And _you_ ratted me out! I had to talk to her anyway!" He poked hard at her hip. "There's a pattern here, Beckett. A pattern of betrayal."

Kate grabbed his hand and shot him a warning look. He glared back at her defiantly, then caved an instant later.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he lifted the hem of her sweater pressed a kiss to the sore spot. He raised his eyes innocently and added, "But Gina did get the idea from you."

"Because _you_ were depressed that your fan mail was tapering off." She meant it to be sharp, but seriously—the puppy dog eyes.

"I _thought_ I could raise money for a good cause and energize the base." He let her wrestle the hem of her sweater from his fingers and contented himself with brushing his nose against the soft fabric. "I didn't think I was selling my artistic integrity."

Energize the_ base?_ She wanted to call him out for that. She could taste it on her tongue, because, really, was he running for Prom King?

Instead she found her fingers smoothing through his hair. Castle let out a sigh, and she felt his shoulders release just a little. He wasn't playing. Not entirely. Something was really bothering him and she_ still_ didn't know what the girlfriend protocols were.

"You did, Castle. Raise money for a good cause," she said softly as she trailed her thumb down his cheek to nudge his chin up. She met his eyes. "Thank you."

"Wanted to," he said with a smile this time. Genuine, with minimal puppy dog eyes. "Fund's getting big. Probably five scholarships next year."

Five. _Five._ Five people, plus the four who'd already gotten scholarships. Nine people keeping her mother's work alive. She knew the protocol for that. She dipped her head down and kissed him until she felt his shoulders relax a little more.

"Thank you," she whispered again.

He whined a little and raised up to follow as she pulled back, but Kate planted a palm on his chest and pushed him back down. That was about enough of _that_. He needed to write, and she was . . . what was she doing again?

_Reading_, supplied one part of her brain, rather testily. That wasn't exactly a compelling argument, especially when his eyes had drifted shut and his face had softened and oh shit . . . there was that little boy look that crept over him in unguarded moments.

_WRITING, then_. She wasn't sure how her own brain was rolling its eyes at her, and yet . . .

She caught his fingers again—apparently they'd slipped back under her sweater at some point—and dragged them up to more PG-rated environs. His eyes snapped open and he looked for all the world like a deer in headlights. She relented and kissed his fingertips. Lord, he'd turned her into a sad case.

"How bad can it be, Castle?" she asked as she rested their joined hands on his chest.

"Worse now." He pouted up at her. "I can't even think about writing when you kiss me like that."

"Hmm . . . guess I won't do that any more," she said thoughtfully. "Can't be responsible for you not being able to keep yourself in the style you've become accustomed to."

"But you will be. Either way." Castle studied her face. "Either I'll be thinking about you kissing me _or_ I'll be thinking about how to get you to kiss me again."

She laughed. "So it's my fault either way?"

"So many things are," he agreed. His eyes widened. _Puppy dog._ "Have you noticed that?"

"I have." She brushed her hand down his forehead, briefly covering his eyes. "Come on, Castle. What won? Maybe I can help."

He slid his head to the side and peeked up at her.

"You'll help?" he asked with an eager grin. But his face fell a second later. "No. It's no use. It's impossible."

Kate patted his cheek. "Offer is about to expire. Just tell me. What won?"

"It's soooo _dumb,_" he groaned.

"Castle . . ." She disentangled their hands and made as if to move, but he clung on.

"Knitting! Knitting saves lives," he said quickly as he settled back on her lap with an innocent look on his face. Every inch the little kid who'd been caught reading by flashlight under the covers.

Kate wondered if he had been. Martha didn't seem to be the type to be that strict, but boarding school . . . Had he always been in trouble? _Probably,_ she thought. He certainly was now. Not that she wasn't.

"I _told_ you it was dumb. I thought about when we were frozen, but it's not like a cashmere wrap would have made the difference." He rubbed at his eyes.

She realized he'd been talking while her mind wandered and she could feel the tension creeping back into his shoulders.

"And then I thought about a scarf or something . . ." There was a hitch in his voice. "Like something that would get hooked and keep Nikki from . . . falling and she'd, like, pull herself up . . ."

His face was turned away from her, his eyes fixed on the coffee table, but she could see the corner of his jaw working.

_Oh. _They'd talked about it. Of course they'd talked about it. Sort of. And she knew he was better. A little better. But it was all still mixed up for both of them. Her getting shot. All that time apart. Both their secrets and her almost falling. There was nothing he could have done. Either time. But he didn't quite believe it and she couldn't really make him believe it. He was learning. It was better. But he was still learning to believe it. And he had to get there on his own. Mostly on his own.

"Too stretchy," she said after a minute. His head swiveled toward her and she enjoyed the puzzled frown. Anticipation loosened his jaw a little and she breathed a little easier. She could tease him out of this. "Knitting is too stretchy. She'd just kind of bob in place and then it would unravel."

"Frogging," he said absently. "It's called frogging when knitting unravels."

"And you know this, because . . . ?"

But he wasn't listening. He was thinking. "Rook could rescue her. He could pull her up."

He gave her a smile. A half smile, really. Timid and uncertain. But it was better than the alternative.

Kate ran with it, eager to keep him in the moment. "I'm telling you: Too stretchy. No leverage."

"I told you it was impossible," he grumbled. But he was thinking about it again. His fingers tapped against the back of her hand as if it were a keyboard.

Kate let out a careful breath, not wanting to disrupt his concentration. She settled back into the couch and enjoyed the rare opportunity to watch him without feeding his ego. It was comfortable. Being with him like this. Watching him and doing nothing much. The rhythm of his breath under her hand lulled her into a sort of daydream. And then the thought landed suddenly with a thud.

"Needles!"

Castle flinched at her sudden exclamation. He blinked up at her, more than a little dazed. "Needles?"

"Needles." She pulled her hand free from his and mimed knitting. Or what she imagined knitting looked like. "Jenny had these scary-looking metal ones, remember?"

"Those things were like railroad spikes." He rubbed his arm. "She poked me with one."

"You were talking during the movie," she reminded him with a tap on the nose. "And she warned you."

"She's violent for such a tiny person. Violent." He sat up halfway, finally putting the thought together. "Violent! Needles! Beckett, you're a genius."

He pulled her toward him and peppered her face and neck with kisses. Kate half-heartedly fought him off. She swatted at him and grabbed for his ear. Just then his teeth grazed the underside of her jaw and she wasn't so much fighting him off as she was reaching for him and tugging at his clothes and . . .

"Hey!" She meant it to be stern, but it came out sultry somehow.

"Hey," he echoed as the tip of his tongue teased the corner of her mouth.

She meant to say something. She definitely had a follow-up. It was just hard to remember what it might have been with his hand creeping up her side and his fingers just grazing the underside if her breast and . . .

"Hey!" It came out as a croak, but she managed to put a little distance between them and that was no good at all because his hair was standing up every which way and his cheeks were flushed and he had just the right amount of stubble and it was impossible not to believe that late afternoon sex was, objectively, the best sex of all.

"Hey?" He frowned at her in utter confusion, and there was absolutely no point in pretending that it wasn't adorable.

"You . . . _You_ have to work!" She squirmed out from underneath him—mostly out from underneath him. Yes, she was definitely getting out from underneath him and scrambling up on the to the arm of the couch. That was definitely the plan.

"Mmmm, no. No work. I'm way ahead of the game now." He struggled to his knees and clumsily started toward her. It should have killed the mood. It might have if he hadn't caught her around one calf right then and reeled her in.

"My girlfriend is brilliant, and I'm way ahead of the game," he murmured as he stretched out alongside her, pressing the length of her body along the back of the couch.

* * *

_"NYPD! Clear a path!" Heat waved her shield a final time, then let it fall back against her chest as she planted a palm and vaulted the escalator railing._

_Momentum carried her too far forward and smashed her gun hand awkwardly between her body and the brick wall. She left more than a little skin behind and her fingers felt numb and clumsy._

_"Fuck," she hissed under her breath as she cleared the last stairs, two at a time._

_Braxton's bulk slowed him down in the rush hour crowd. Nikki lowered a shoulder and put on speed. She was closing in when something in her peripheral vision snagged her attention._

_Rook. She lost two strides—one to look and one glare._

Fuck._ She'd told him to stay above ground and wait for backup._

_A sudden change in air pressure snapped Heat's attention back to the problem at hand. A train. Unbelievably a train was pulling in. Braxton was going to make it._

_Nikki's eyes darted right, then left. A solid wall of briefcases and trench coats and a crowd of teenagers were about to converge in front of her. She wasn't going to make it. _Shit.

_Fingers closed around her elbow briefly and then Rook was in front of her, spinning right and spreading his arms wide._

_"NPYD!" he bellowed. "Stop!"_

_The teenagers pulled up short and skidded into his back. Commuters piled up behind and the noise level in the crowded station went to eleven. But she had a clear path to the train. She'd make it._

_Heat didn't look his way as she sprinted by. There wasn't time, but she made a mental note to give him a gold star for quick thinking._

_Braxton was through the doors. The car wasn't crowded. Three civilians that she could see and either another or someone's stuff stashed in the rear-facing seat in the alcove housing the door between cars._

_Nikki raised a silent prayer of thanks for the reverse commute as she slid through the doors and raised her shield in one hand, gun in the other, to make introductions._

_Braxton let out a string of curses as he caught a glimpse of her over his shoulder. Heat smiled._

_The doors bumped shut behind, but not before some kind of commotion erupted at her back._

_Rook. Again. _Fuck.

_The doors clamped the trailing edge of his scarf. He made a move to step back and give Nikki room to work, not realizing he was tethered. He stumbled hard and slammed into one of the car's few passengers, an older woman who sent up an ear piercing wail as her bag tumbled off the seat scattering its contents in the aisle._

_It wasn't much. Nikki's attention flickered for less than a second, but it was enough. Braxton's leg swung up. He snapped his knee and his foot connected with her gun hand. Heat grunted and struggled to hold on, but the gun flew from her already-injured hand and sailed behind her._

_The train lurched. Rook, focused on untangling himself from the scarf, went to his knees with the passenger whose bag he'd upended still yelling in his ear. He turned to tell her to shut up and move to the back of the car. He met with a surprisingly tough fist and a face full of something soft and vaguely scratchy._

_Braxton launched himself at Nikki. The detective side-stepped and brought her knee up into his gut. Air whooshed out of the big man. He'd clearly felt the blow, but he was still on his feet. Heat was good at hand-to-hand in close quarters, but Braxton's size and the physics of a moving train were against her._

_Rook winced as Braxton landed an elbow to Nikki's solar plexus. She let out an over-the-top cough and folded in on herself as she staggered back into a pole. Braxton took the bait and advanced. As he bent to grab a fistful of her hair, she drove her fists upward under his chin._

_Braxton's head snapped back and he stumbled backward. Nikki drove a fist into his ribs as she spun past him, trying to draw him further up the car. Away from Rook and the other passengers._

_Heat raised one heel, hoping to connect with Braxton's knee. Just then the train jerked left into a sharp turn. The movement couldn't have come at a worse time. She went down hard on her tailbone. Her injured hand slapped to the floor behind her, sending a wave of numbness from wrist to elbow._

_Gravity was just as unkind to Braxton. His lower back slammed against the edge of the seat about 2 feet from Rook's nose. Metal clanged as it met the man's thick skull and the old woman screamed. Again._

_Rook cranked his neck around to face her."Get back," he barked."Get out of the car if you can."_

_Something in his tone finally managed to catch her attention and her mouth snapped shut._

_"Leave it. Go!" he hissed as she bent to gather her things._

_The old woman shot him a dirty look, but at least she went._

_Nikki struggled to get her feet under her. The train just kept picking up speed and her injured hand wasn't helping. Braxton was already shaking his head and using the seat at his back to his advantage._

_Rook looked on helplessly as Heat levered herself halfway up only to have the car judder beneath her and send her flying again. Braxton was already up. Already moving. He'd be on her in a second._

_Rook reached to press a hand to the floor in preparation for some unplanned heroics. His palm landed on some kind of long cylinder that rolled over the grooves in the car's floor mats, taking him along for the ride._

_He fell forward again and landed with his fingers closed around the thing. He barely registered what it was, other than thick and metal, tapering to a vicious-looking point. This and the fact that the fall had carried him closer to Braxton had the makings of a plan in Rook's mind._

_Braxton was up and Nikki wasn't and that's all Rook needed to know. He pushed himself to his knees and lurched forward in a low crouch. He drew his right arm back and launched himself at the big man._

_Fate was kind, for once, and Rook's left arm managed to hook Braxton's knee. His right arm drove forward with as much force as he could manage. The metal sank into the meat of Braxton's thigh. He went down with an ungodly howl and landed within striking distance for Nikki._

_Still working from her awkward position on the floor, Heat drew one heel back. She slammed it into the side of Braxton's head. The lights went out and he collapsed, boneless, on to the floor of the train car._

_Rook slid back to slump against a seat. Nikki stared at him open mouthed for a beat or two before the weapon caught her eye._

_"Is that . . ." She looked up at him, disbelieving._

_Rook nodded. "Knitting saves lives. You should think about taking it up, Nik."_

_"More your style, don't you think?" She arched an eyebrow at him._

_"You have a point."_


End file.
